Musings on parenting and life from a single mama

The emotional cycle of your toddler learning to scale their cot

Annoyance. Let’s not underestimate this one folks, it is fucking annoying. You will now spend hours of your life returning them to their cot over and over again. And then some more.

Agitation/ paranoia. From the warmth of your bed, every little creak will sound like a mini escapee. Get ready for sleeping on high alert again like when they were new-borns. I found him in a heap on the floor once, it was only after a hard prod to check he was breathing that I realised he’d fallen asleep and I should have just left him! I have nightmares of waking up to him wreaking havoc throughout the house while I’m soundly sleeping, then I realise an uninterrupted nights’ sleep would be worth all the havoc possible.

Pride. My son hoicks himself up by grabbing the tallest end of the cot. Then he pulls up his legs using his stomach muscles until they are above hip height, before swiftly swinging his legs round over the cot side (all this whilst in a baby sleeping bag I might add). Finally, he grabs hold of the side once again to lower himself gently without taking his chin out on the way (and to make the whole thing as deathly silent as possible). It’s pretty much like a Louis Smith move on the pommel horse (I’m not too sure if he does the pose at the end but it wouldn’t surprise me). Maybe there could be a wonderful career made out of this skill after all.

Acceptance. My life as I know it is over. No more leaving him to sing himself to sleep in his cot. No more pretending I haven’t yet heard him wake up. This is the real deal now. Who knew that bedtime actually takes three hours? He can get out whenever he fancies – morning, noon and night. And so far he seems to fancy it a whole lot.

Support

Sorry folks, there is pretty much no support I can advise for this parenting challenge. I have no idea why they haven’t invented cots with 6 foot sides, I personally would buy one in an instant.

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